Ancient, Medieval and Modern History of India Thread

[Gollum]

@Muloghonto @rahulrulezz Thought we could have a separate thread for the history discussions. Instead of spreading the knowledgeable posts across several different threads, why not put it all in one place for future reference ?

 

Let me start of with  a few questions to you guys:

 

1. How do you rate Tipu Sultan, tyrant or freedom fighter?  Or may be simply a shrewd ruler? Karnataka elections are due next year and this is becoming a hot topic, either you glorify him or cast him as the eternal villain. 

 

2. Rate the 5-6 (maybe more) greatest Ancient and Medieval rulers of India in terms of extent of empire, military, economy, administration and contribution to culture and arts.

 

3. is there a deliberate downplaying of the Imperial Cholas in our history books? We glorify the Mauryans, Guptas, Sultans, Mughals, Vijaynagar, Rajputs, Marathas etc but if you look at the extent of the Cholas during their prime and the cultural influence it is huge. South India, Lanka, Sumatra, Java, Bali, Malaya, Thailand, Cambodia all were under their sphere of influence. Even the North Indian kings (upto River Ganga) were soundly defeated by Rajendra Chola. We are talking about a great power that wielded tremendous power for close to 4 centuries and the Chola administration and land/water management is the stuff of legends. Even their ties with the Europeans, Chinese, Africans, Arabs was vast, they were very global in their outlook.

 

4. Were there any kind/just/tolerant non genocidal Muslim rulers in medieval India? Akbar was comparatively better I guess and I attribute his initial massacres of Hindus as politics/necessity rather than a compulsive desire to massacre non Muslims. Dara Shikoh could have been another one, but alas it never happened. 

 

Just a few questions from the top of my head, you can take your time in answering them . Let us keep all history discussions here for the benefit of all.

Edited October 11, 2017 by Gollum

[Muloghonto]

5 minutes ago, Gollum said:

@Muloghonto @rahulrulezz Thought we could have a separate thread for the history discussions. Instead of spreading the knowledgeable posts across several different threads, why not put it all in one place for future reference ?

Good idea.

 

5 minutes ago, Gollum said:

Let me start of with  a few questions to you guys:

 

1. How do you rate Tipu Sultan, tyrant or freedom fighter?  Or may be simply a shrewd ruler? Karnataka elections are due next year and this is becoming a hot topic, either you glorify him or cast him as the eternal villain. 

Tyrant. He was in it, all just for himself and had no problems bowling over anyone who was in the way- including his own people. 

 

5 minutes ago, Gollum said:

2. Rate the 5-6 (maybe more) greatest Ancient and Medieval rulers of India in terms of extent of empire, military, economy, administration and contribution to culture and arts.

Tough to do. 5-6 may be too short a list.

Extent of empire :

1. Ashoka  2. Chandragupta Vikramaditya  3. Rajendra Chola  4. Kanishka  5. Indra III  

Military :

1. Ashoka/Chandragupta Maurya  2. Chandragupta Vikramaditya  3. Indra III  4. Vikramaditya III 5. Mahapadma Nanda

Economy: too hard, because in absolute terms, the Guptas were richer than the Magadh empires, but in relative terms (to rest of the world), Magadh empire was richer. Also, a more fuzzy area, since we've had large empires that were not so rich (e.g.: Pratiharas) and tiny kingdoms who were super-rich (Maitrakas)

 

Administration : I wouldn't rate any of them very highly, because they all failed to create institutions and Chanakya-niti is actually the downfall of Indian politics. But Gupta era and previous, the administration was on a sound footing, as far as structure goes. Also goes for the Cholas. 

 

Contribution to culture and arts : 

1. Samudragupta/Chandragupta Vikramaditya  2. Rajaraja/Rajendra Chola  5. Amoghavarsha 4. Krishna Deva Raya  5. Agnimitra   

 

5 minutes ago, Gollum said:

3. is there a deliberate downplaying of the Imperial Cholas in our history books? We glorify the Mauryans, Guptas, Sultans, Mughals, Vijaynagar, Rajputs, Marathas etc but if you look at the extent of the Cholas during their prime and the cultural influence it is huge. South India, Lanka, Sumatra, Java, Bali, Malaya, Thailand, Cambodia all were under their sphere of influence. Even the North Indian kings (upto River Ganga) were soundly defeated by Rajendra Chola. We are talking about a great power that wielded tremendous power for close to 4 centuries and the Chola administration and land/water management is the stuff of legends. Even their ties with the Europeans, Chinese, Africans, Arabs was vast, they were very global in their outlook.

Short answer: yes. Cholas are the first ever recorded trans-oceanic empire in the world, when Rajendra chola made vassals in Malay Peninsula, Sumatra and Java. Another overlooked empire: Satavahanas. They were also excellent organizers, administrators and excellent builders. 

 

5 minutes ago, Gollum said:

4. Were there any kind/just/tolerant non genocidal Muslim rulers in medieval India? Akbar was comparatively better I guess and I attribute his initial massacres of Hindus as politics/necessity rather than a compulsive desire to massacre non Muslims. Dara Shikoh could have been another one, but alas it never happened. 

Yes. Sher Shah comes to mind. Akbar hogs all the limelight, but its Sher Shah who i think showed the most secular de-facto attitude. 

 

5 minutes ago, Gollum said:

Just a few questions from the top of my head, you can take your time in answering them . Let us keep all history discussions here for the benefit of all.

Sounds good. 

 

[sandeep]

6 hours ago, Gollum said:

is there a deliberate downplaying of the Imperial Cholas in our history books? We glorify the Mauryans, Guptas, Sultans, Mughals, Vijaynagar, Rajputs, Marathas etc but if you look at the extent of the Cholas during their prime and the cultural influence it is huge. South India, Lanka, Sumatra, Java, Bali, Malaya, Thailand, Cambodia all were under their sphere of influence. Even the North Indian kings (upto River Ganga) were soundly defeated by Rajendra Chola. We are talking about a great power that wielded tremendous power for close to 4 centuries and the Chola administration and land/water management is the stuff of legends. Even their ties with the Europeans, Chinese, Africans, Arabs was vast, they were very global in their outlook.

I don't think its deliberate.  I think its a lack of knowledge.  And let's be a bit honest, geographically speaking, the cholas did not ever rule the 'heart' of India.   If you thnk about it, Hampi and the Vijaynagar empire does get its share of coverage in Indian history.  Location matters - that's my point.  Let's not jump to "southie bias" as the first possible explanation.  

 

Cholas were pretty cool though, and I would love to know more about them beyond what wikipedia etc gives you.

[sandeep]

6 hours ago, Muloghonto said:

Another overlooked empire: Satavahanas. They were also excellent organizers, administrators and excellent builders.

I stumbled upon these guys after reading up on Ajanta Ellora.  You are right in the sense that its overlooked.  Another era and regime that seems very interesting to learn about.  

 

As India slowly rises from the depths of poverty, I hope that adequate resources and people get devoted to further study and discovery of its history.  There's so much there to learn. 

[Gollum]

1 hour ago, sandeep said:

I don't think its deliberate.  I think its a lack of knowledge.  And let's be a bit honest, geographically speaking, the cholas did not ever rule the 'heart' of India.   If you thnk about it, Hampi and the Vijaynagar empire does get its share of coverage in Indian history.  Location matters - that's my point.  Let's not jump to "southie bias" as the first possible explanation.  

 

Cholas were pretty cool though, and I would love to know more about them beyond what wikipedia etc gives you.

Nah man I will be the last possible person to jump into such an argument having lived mostly in the east and north, and getting exposed to Southie culture only after college. I just believe all Indians should make a sincere attempt to respect and know about the history of the entire country and as an extension, the subcontinent. We are mostly exposed to Islamic and Northern/Western Indian rulers but the history of the Ahoms, Satavahanas, Rashtrakutas, Gangas, Chalukyas, Hoysalas, Cholas, Cheras, Pandyas is equally rich and awe inspiring. I was specifically talking about Cholas here because a friend of mine had once visited Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand and couldn't stop raving about the influence of Indian culture in those areas. I did a bit of reading and indeed if there is one place outside India where we have been able to export our culture successfully it is S.E Asia. Forget the temples, palaces and kings, even the names of Muslim citizens there are very Indianized. Hijab wearing women with names like Nandiputri, Devi, Sarala, Kaveri etc does blow your mind, just check out their names on social media. Indonesian national carrier is named Garuda, they have Ganesh, Karthik and Laxmi on their currency notes....all this for a region ruled by Muslims for the past 6 centuries makes me wonder how great an influence the Cholas must have had there. 

Edited October 11, 2017 by Gollum

[sandeep]

10 minutes ago, Gollum said:

Nah man I will be the last possible person to jump into such an argument having lived mostly in the east and north, and getting exposed to Southie culture only after college. I just believe all Indians should make a sincere attempt to respect and know about the history of the entire country and as an extension, the subcontinent. We are mostly exposed to Islamic and Northern/Western Indian rulers but the history of the Ahoms, Satavahanas, Rashtrakutas, Gangas, Chalukyas, Hoysalas, Cholas, Cheras, Pandyas is equally rich and awe inspiring. I was specifically talking about Cholas here because a friend of mine had once visited Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand and couldn't stop raving about the influence of Indian culture in those areas. I did a bit of reading and indeed if there is one place outside India where we have been able to export our culture successfully it is S.E Asia. Forget the temples, palaces and kings, even the names of Muslim citizens there are very Indianized. Hijab wearing women with names like Nandiputri, Devi, Sarala, Kaveri etc does blow your mind, just check out their names on social media. Indonesian national carrier is named Garuda, they have Ganesh, Karthik and Laxmi on their currency notes....all this for a region ruled by Muslims for the past 6 centuries makes me wonder how great an influence the Cholas must have had there. 

We are largely on the same page.  I have traveled to Thailand, Bali (Indonesia) and Cambodia.  Seeing Ramayana painted on the walls of the King's Palace in Bangkok, sculpted into the magnificent Angkor Wat, and seeing the massive statues of Hindu figures like Bheem and Arjun in the roundabouts in Bali does inspire a lot of pride and desire to learn more about how that happened.  

 

By the way, Thailand's king's official name is Ram.   And their airport is called SuvarnaBhoomi.  Although you will never hear it pronounced that way by any Thai!  

 

 

[Gollum]

We focus on Islamic conquests from the N.W and get upset about the what ifs and missed opportunities. But we have always been under attack from the N.W since ancient times. No one could attack us from north because of the great mountain wall, east was too hilly and forested. Until the European rise no foreigner was able to master the sea (come to think of it, our navies were so damn good, especially that of the Cholas and Pandyas), so an attack from the coasts was impossible. That left only the N.W with Khyber, Bolan and Gomal passed leading straight into modern day Khyber Pakthunkhwa. 

 

Forget medieval India. Think of the invaders of ancient Indian SC.

• The Achaemenid Empire of Persia, largest empire of the ancient world started attacking us from the 6th century BC onwards. Cambyses II and later Darius I,  dad of Xerxes (300 wallah, shame on Hollywood for depicting such a great king as some sort of cartoon ) made real advance to as far as the lower Indus valley. It is a documented fact that Indians (experts in bow and arrow) and Tibetans(brought the Tibetan Mastiffs to war) fought in the Greek-Persian battles. Modern day Afghanistan and Pakistan (upto Indus, though some sources say it could be even bigger extending upto Indian Punjab) formed the 20th satrap of the mighty Persian empire. Some sources indicate that the wars were financed by Indian gold. Persia is modern day Iran, same place from where Nadir Shah would emerge in the 1700s. Nadir Shah was the man who broke the backs of the Mughals and Marathas before Abdali entered India. Same people, just their religion was different.
• Alexander from Macedonia....self explanatory.
• Greco Bactrians from Central Asia and Western Afghanistan, same people as Ghazni, Ghori (AFG) and Timur, Babur (Uzbekistan).
• Scythians from Kazakhstan, Iran and Eurasian steppe. They became Sakas in India and most of them settled in western India.
• Parthians from Central Asia. Popular theory is they are precursors of the Pallavas. I read somewhere that Pallava in Tamil means 'Rascal'. They were called rascals because they behaved like barbarians in the eyes of local Dravidians. Parthians were like proper barbarians in their mannerisms and fighting.
• Kushanas from modern day Xinjian Uyghur Autonomous Region of China.
• Hun invasion upto Mathura. 

What I am trying to get at is that we have been under perennial attack from the N.W. Even today there rests our most bitter enemy, waiting to pounce on any sign of weakness. Same people who attacked us in ancient times attacked us in medieval times. Only the religion of the attackers changed, else their way of life, military tactics/strategy and basic character was more or less the same. While we rightly denounce our Muslim past as being cruel and intolerant isn't is possible that even in ancient times the invaders were just as cruel and barbaric? Recency effect, literature, architecture etc tell us about the brutality of the Muslims. The statistics, death tolls and rapes of the invasions in ancient times haven't been recorded. even those recorded are mostly BS numbers, vastly exaggerated and with no objectivity (no way did C. Maurya have an army with 30 lakh soldiers and 100000 elephants, come what may ).

Same goes with the Aryan theory. If we believe that the Harappans (defensive people) were mostly Dravidians who collapsed at the onslaught of the fort breaking Aryans shouldn't we equally outrage about the brutality of the Aryans? I don't believe in Gods and Goddeses, I think they are merely symbols that signify something. Eg the all powerful fort breaking Aryan is Indira, the forest clearer is Agni and Varuna is the one who douses the fire. India was forest land then and the Aryans were pastoral people, who cleared vast tracts of forest land before settling down. Same Aryans wrote the Vedas and much of Hinduism can be traced back to these invaders. If Muslims were barbarians who shook up the country, I would argue that even the Aryans were barbarians who wiped out the local culture before imposing their will on the populace. Same goes for the Sakas, Parthians, Huns etc. 

Edited October 11, 2017 by Gollum

[Gollum]

48 minutes ago, sandeep said:

We are largely on the same page.  I have traveled to Thailand, Bali (Indonesia) and Cambodia.  Seeing Ramayana painted on the walls of the King's Palace in Bangkok, sculpted into the magnificent Angkor Wat, and seeing the massive statues of Hindu figures like Bheem and Arjun in the roundabouts in Bali does inspire a lot of pride and desire to learn more about how that happened.  

 

By the way, Thailand's king's official name is Ram.   And their airport is called SuvarnaBhoomi.  Although you will never hear it pronounced that way by any Thai!  

 

 

Nice. 

 

More than Thailand, Indonesia is very surprising for me. Thailand is Buddhist majority, essentially just like us.

Indonesia is 90% Muslim majority, still they hold on to their Indian past. If you see the trend worldwide Muslims dissociate themselves from their pre Islamic past. Even Iran has distanced itself from its past and it has one of the greatest histories of the ancient world. But seeing Indonesia and Malaysia(61% Muslim) clinging on to their pre Islamic roots is shocking tbh. 

[sandeep]

10 minutes ago, Gollum said:

Nice. 

 

More than Thailand, Indonesia is very surprising for me. Thailand is Buddhist majority, essentially just like us.

Indonesia is 90% Muslim majority, still they hold on to their Indian past. If you see the trend worldwide Muslims dissociate themselves from their pre Islamic past. Even Iran has distanced itself from its past and it has one of the greatest histories of the ancient world. But seeing Indonesia and Malaysia(61% Muslim) clinging on to their pre Islamic roots is shocking tbh. 

IMO South East Asia has an intrinsic accepting culture - they have been so open to outside influences - easily converted to hinduism, buddhism, islam etc.  All over Cambodia, you will see these cute little toyhouse looking things right next to a mailbox - these are chinese style "ancestor homes" - Cambodians have adopted quite a bit of that as well.  Lot of poverty in Cambodia though.  But Angkor Wat was amazing to see, as someone who enjoys history, and ancient architecture.  

 

Maybe its a bit of a hangover from my chilled vacations there, but I always get the impression that the S-E- asians are a lot more relaxed relative to some of the other parts of the world.  In their own unique way, different yet comparable to the 'island' vibe that you see in the caribbean.   

[sandeep]

20 minutes ago, Gollum said:

We focus on Islamic conquests from the N.W and get upset about the what ifs and missed opportunities. But we have always been under attack from the N.W since ancient times. No one could attack us from north because of the great mountain wall, east was too hilly and forested. Until the European rise no foreigner was able to master the sea (come to think of it, our navies were so damn good, especially that of the Cholas and Pandyas), so an attack from the coasts was impossible. That left only the N.W with Khyber, Bolan and Gomal passed leading straight into modern day Khyber Pakthunkhwa. 

 

Forget medieval India. Think of the invaders of ancient Indian SC.

• The Achaemenid Empire of Persia, largest empire of the ancient world started attacking us from the 6th century BC onwards. Cambyses II and later Darius I,  dad of Xerxes (300 wallah, shame on Hollywood for depicting such a great king as some sort of cartoon ) made real advance to as far as the lower Indus valley. It is a documented fact that Indians (experts in bow and arrow) and Tibetans(brought the Tibetan Mastiffs to war) fought in the Greek-Persian battles. Modern day Afghanistan and Pakistan (upto Indus, though some sources say it could be even bigger extending upto Indian Punjab) formed the 20th satrap of the mighty Persian empire. Some sources indicate that the wars were financed by Indian gold. Persia is modern day Iran, same place from where Nadir Shah would emerge in the 1700s. Nadir Shah was the man who broke the backs of the Mughals and Marathas before Abdali entered India. Same people, just their religion was different.
• Alexander from Macedonia....self explanatory.
• Greco Bactrians from Central Asia and Western Afghanistan, same people as Ghazni, Ghori (AFG) and Timur, Babur (Uzbekistan).
• Scythians from Kazakhstan, Iran and Eurasian steppe. They became Sakas in India and most of them settled in western India.
• Parthians from Central Asia. Popular theory is they are precursors of the Pallavas. I read somewhere that Pallava in Tamil means 'Rascal'. They were called rascals because they behaved like barbarians in the eyes of local Dravidians. Parthians were like proper barbarians in their mannerisms and fighting.
• Kushanas from modern day Xinjian Uyghur Autonomous Region of China.
• Hun invasion upto Mathura. 

What I am trying to get at is that we have been under perennial attack from the N.W. Even today there rests our most bitter enemy, waiting to pounce on any sign of weakness. Same people who attacked us in ancient times attacked us in medieval times. Only the religion of the attackers changed, else their way of life, military tactics/strategy and basic character was more or less the same. While we rightly denounce our Muslim past as being cruel and intolerant isn't is possible that even in ancient times the invaders were just as cruel and barbaric? Recency effect, literature, architecture etc tell us about the brutality of the Muslims. The statistics, death tolls and rapes of the invasions in ancient times haven't been recorded. even those recorded are mostly BS numbers, vastly exaggerated and with no objectivity (no way did C. Maurya have an army with 30 lakh soldiers and 100000 elephants, come what may ).

Same goes with the Aryan theory. If we believe that the Harappans (defensive people) were mostly Dravidians who collapsed at the onslaught of the fort breaking Aryans shouldn't we equally outrage about the brutality of the Aryans? I don't believe in Gods and Goddeses, I think they are merely symbols that signify something. Eg the all powerful fort breaking Aryan is Indira, the forest clearer is Agni and Varuna is the one who douses the fire. India was forest land then and the Aryans were pastoral people, who cleared vast tracts of forest land before settling down. Same Aryans wrote the Vedas and much of Hinduism can be traced back to these invaders. If Muslims were barbarians who shook up the country, I would argue that even the Aryans were barbarians who wiped out the local culture before imposing their will on the populace. Same goes for the Sakas, Parthians, Huns etc. 

That's an interesting hypothesis.   Not sure if I agree though.  Another thing to keep in mind, is that modern day Pakistan is not really the 'other' as hard as the greenbros try to be.  They are essentially us, historically speaking.  Chanakya is a "pakistani", he stuided and taught at Takshasheela.   Although that's a bad example, you can argue that Chanakya was a proto-taliban mullah, who successfully launched a campaign that led to overthrowing the existing regime and installing Chandragupt as Emperor.  History does have a fascinating way of repeating itself.  Maybe the children of the Indus are prone to causing their own destruction by fratricidal conflict - whether its the Pandava-Kauravas in the times of the Mahabharata, or modern day divorced brothers in India-Pakistan.  

[Muloghonto]

2 hours ago, Gollum said:

We focus on Islamic conquests from the N.W and get upset about the what ifs and missed opportunities. But we have always been under attack from the N.W since ancient times. No one could attack us from north because of the great mountain wall, east was too hilly and forested. Until the European rise no foreigner was able to master the sea (come to think of it, our navies were so damn good, especially that of the Cholas and Pandyas), so an attack from the coasts was impossible. That left only the N.W with Khyber, Bolan and Gomal passed leading straight into modern day Khyber Pakthunkhwa. 

 

Forget medieval India. Think of the invaders of ancient Indian SC.

• The Achaemenid Empire of Persia, largest empire of the ancient world started attacking us from the 6th century BC onwards. Cambyses II and later Darius I,  dad of Xerxes (300 wallah, shame on Hollywood for depicting such a great king as some sort of cartoon ) made real advance to as far as the lower Indus valley. It is a documented fact that Indians (experts in bow and arrow) and Tibetans(brought the Tibetan Mastiffs to war) fought in the Greek-Persian battles. Modern day Afghanistan and Pakistan (upto Indus, though some sources say it could be even bigger extending upto Indian Punjab) formed the 20th satrap of the mighty Persian empire. Some sources indicate that the wars were financed by Indian gold. Persia is modern day Iran, same place from where Nadir Shah would emerge in the 1700s. Nadir Shah was the man who broke the backs of the Mughals and Marathas before Abdali entered India. Same people, just their religion was different.
• Alexander from Macedonia....self explanatory.
• Greco Bactrians from Central Asia and Western Afghanistan, same people as Ghazni, Ghori (AFG) and Timur, Babur (Uzbekistan).
• Scythians from Kazakhstan, Iran and Eurasian steppe. They became Sakas in India and most of them settled in western India.
• Parthians from Central Asia. Popular theory is they are precursors of the Pallavas. I read somewhere that Pallava in Tamil means 'Rascal'. They were called rascals because they behaved like barbarians in the eyes of local Dravidians. Parthians were like proper barbarians in their mannerisms and fighting.
• Kushanas from modern day Xinjian Uyghur Autonomous Region of China.
• Hun invasion upto Mathura. 

What I am trying to get at is that we have been under perennial attack from the N.W. Even today there rests our most bitter enemy, waiting to pounce on any sign of weakness. Same people who attacked us in ancient times attacked us in medieval times. Only the religion of the attackers changed, else their way of life, military tactics/strategy and basic character was more or less the same. While we rightly denounce our Muslim past as being cruel and intolerant isn't is possible that even in ancient times the invaders were just as cruel and barbaric? Recency effect, literature, architecture etc tell us about the brutality of the Muslims. The statistics, death tolls and rapes of the invasions in ancient times haven't been recorded. even those recorded are mostly BS numbers, vastly exaggerated and with no objectivity (no way did C. Maurya have an army with 30 lakh soldiers and 100000 elephants, come what may ).

Same goes with the Aryan theory. If we believe that the Harappans (defensive people) were mostly Dravidians who collapsed at the onslaught of the fort breaking Aryans shouldn't we equally outrage about the brutality of the Aryans? I don't believe in Gods and Goddeses, I think they are merely symbols that signify something. Eg the all powerful fort breaking Aryan is Indira, the forest clearer is Agni and Varuna is the one who douses the fire. India was forest land then and the Aryans were pastoral people, who cleared vast tracts of forest land before settling down. Same Aryans wrote the Vedas and much of Hinduism can be traced back to these invaders. If Muslims were barbarians who shook up the country, I would argue that even the Aryans were barbarians who wiped out the local culture before imposing their will on the populace. Same goes for the Sakas, Parthians, Huns etc. 

1. Don't go into Aryan invasion theory. Because of two reasons : 

  a) It isn't conclusive either way, whether Aryans came to India or Aryans are from India. I've been there, talking endlessly of the possibilities, but at this point, thats all they are. 

  b) Aryans, whether they came to India or left India is ultimately irrelevant to us. Too much focus is given on this topic, due to religious & ethnic ideologies ( latter, from both side, former, from Hindu side) and leads to complete side-track and ignoring of our actual history. In my experience, every history thread that talks about Aryans, gets quagmired in the endless possibilities of Aryan theory and ignores all the rest of history. The Pallavas, Cholas, Cheras,Senas, Gujjars, Solankis- ALL of them and many many more- are far more relevant to our history than whether the Aryans came or went. I personally lean towards 'Aryans are either from India or middle east' option but as i said, its a lean, its not a hardline position.

 

2. Notice the pattern of invasions ? Except for Hepthalite (Abdal/Huns) invasion, EVERY SINGLE INVASION comes against a broken Northern India, lacking an empire or an empire already falling. Achaemenids, Greeks, Parthians, Sassanids, Kushans, Ghaznavi, Bin Qasim, Ghori, Babur, Timur - all of them succeeded against small kingdoms, not against an empire. Hepthalites are the only ones who invaded and won against an empire (Gupta) spanning the North. 

The reason is simple : India sucks for horses and from ancient times, we've been importing horses from Bactria (Balkh). Our literature calls the people living around Bactria-Badakhshan as 'Kamboja' and further mentions their clans : Ashvaka and Ashvakayana ( Ashvaka is the genesis of the name Afghan btw). 
So how did we compensate for lacking horses ? Elephants. Unfortunately, elephants cost cr@p ton of money. This is why, when we see major empires around - like Pal, Magadh dynasties, Shungas etc. had 5,000-15,000 war elephants, but tiny kingdoms like Porus, Hindu Shahis, etc. had 100-200 elephants. Sometime before 500s AD, humanity invented stirrups and stirrups changed warfare. This is because now, with stirrups, you can 'lock your foot in' and weight transfer, thus making lancers a viable option. Prior to that, you couldn't barge into something full speed on a horse, because without stirrups, you'd fly off your saddle. Notice all the frescoes and coins of ancient rulers, nobody is resting his foot on a stirrup in all the horse imagery, till this timeframe. IIRC, its a Kushan seal that shows the first stirrup. 

So without stirrups, horses could not be used to counter elephants- because you cannot 'sword fight' with someone sitting on top of an elephant while you are on a horse- there is like 3 feet height disadvantage for the horseman. But after stirrups, you could atleast hope to put blinkers on your horse, run it full speed and barge into an elephant formation, poking them with 20 foot pointy sticks (lances). 

So this makes elephants an 'unsurmountable battle problem' for our enemies, when we could field them by the thousands.

This is why Alexander turned around and left. The popular story is his soldiers rebelled. Not WHY they rebelled. The myth is, all of a sudden, war-vets got tired of war and wanted to go home. But Greek sources themselves state, that when Alexander heard of 'the kings of Praesii & Gangaridai'( Greek transformation of the term Kashi and Ganga-hridaya- referring to either Magadh or Bengal) was marching with over 200,000 troops that included 5,000 war elephants, he promptly crapped his briefs and left. 

 

3. Not all invaders were bad or even harmful for us. Take for example the Kushans. They were Indo-European by stock, came in and conquered whole of north India. At one point, Kushan Empire was the 'central empire' of the world, because its boundaries touched the Chinese empire (in Tarim Basin) and almost touched the Roman Empire (Rome's eastern-most outpost was around the black sea coast, Kushan's western-most reach was the Aral Sea). They made India insanely rich and we have Roman writers like Pliny lamenting how much Roman silver is flowing into India because Roman nobility was addicted to cotton & spices. (Fun fact : All the togas you see in hollywood for Roman senators - they were the dress of the upper class. And all togas were made from cotton - imported from the only place in the world that grew cotton in those times : India). Furthermore, they wholesale adopted Indian religions & culture. Early Kushans, like Kajala Kadaphises, were sun-worshippers ( same as the Magi tradition of the Iranians) but from then on, they adopted either Buddhism or Hinduism. Kanishka was a Buddhist and the last 'great Kushan' was named 'Bazdeo' in his seals - which is Kushan corruption of the word 'Vasudeva'....and he was a devotee of...Vasudeva Krishna. 
I have no problem calling these people Indians, as they effectively became Indians in every sense of the word. 

 

 

4. The muslims kicked over a dying and decaying Indian civilization, committing countless atrocities. But the start of the insane murder, genocide and destruction was done right when Gupta Empire fell - at the hands of the Hepthalites. Hepthalites are noted in Iranic sources as staunchly sun-worshippers and categoric haters of Buddhism. Mihirkula is also demonized in Indian literature (in the Kashmiri written Rajatarangini) as an insane butcher of the Buddhists. They are also the reason why Pataliputra was abandoned, because Mihirkula or his father, Toramanna, razed Pataliputra to the ground. A 100 years before Mihirkula, I-Tsing came though India and though he didnt talk specifically about Indian cities by name, he exalted the 'mighty capital of the emperors, historic capital of India' (which can only be Pataliputra). Yet, 100 years after Hepthalites, when Xuanzong visited Harsha, he noted how Pataliputra, the ancient capital, was in 'ruins'. 

Its also the Hepthalites, that utterly annihilated Gandhara and the Takshashila tradition of learning. Currently, the mounds of Taxila, Sirkap, Sagala all show evidence of tremendous damage around 500 AD and the Hepthalites are known to've broken through the Gupta defences sometime after 470 AD but evicted from India, by Malwa king Yashodharman and Gupta emperor Baladitya, sometime before 525 AD. But people don't know how much of a centre of learning and culture Takshashila was.

 

We have several Chinese pilgrims, wonder-struck by the famous 'Kanishka Stupa' and the 'library of enlightenment' that greeted the the moment they crossed the Khyber into India. We currently have the base remains of Kanishka's stupa and it'd have been the second largest stupa standing today, after Jetavanaramaya stupa in Sri Lanka. But whats more wonder-some, is beside it, stood a wooden built library tower (similar to the Chinese tower pagodas - here's an interesting side-note : Chinese Pagoda style architecture is actually Himalayan  style architecture, adopted by the Chinese around 200 AD, with transmission of Buddhism into China). The height noted varies, but all of them mention it being atleast 200 feet tall (that would make it a 20 storey building) and being repeatedly hit by lightning (also makes sense for a one-of-a-kind tower being a lightning rod). This was ancient Takshashila. by 500 AD, nothing remained, except the foundation stones of the city of Takshashila. 

 

 

Edited October 11, 2017 by Muloghonto

[sandeep]

@Muloghonto  Interesting post. I'm not familiar with I-Tsing and his visit to India.  Any English translation of the documentation of his visit?  

[Muloghonto]

15 minutes ago, sandeep said:

@Muloghonto  Interesting post. I'm not familiar with I-Tsing and his visit to India.  Any English translation of the documentation of his visit?  

It used to exit in Jstor. I-tsing i only mention, because he mentioned 'the great city of the Indian emperors'. Mostly, I-tsing talks about Buddhism and people's demeanour. He notes that all Indians were generous, gentle people, trying to out-do each other in practice of dharma and capital punishment was not present in Gupta empire. He also notes, that Guptas had a highly advanced taxation system, which was later resurrected by Sher Shah : Back in those days, tax revenue wasn't always paid in coin, it was paid in produce, especially by farmers.

 

However, as basic as it may sound, the concept of 'you pay X % of your yield as tax' is a relatively new concept- being around for somewhere in the last 2000 years and Guptas were one of the first practitioners of it. Because in the ancient world, the standard methodology, from Rome to China, was based on land size : 'your land is X acres big, X acres pay Y amount of grain as tax' - which gave a lot of uncertainty to farmers, as you well know, farm yields vary vastly from year to year subject to weather conditions.

But beyond that, I-Tsing talks mostly about buddhism and buddhist books. Xuanzong is a much better read, though he sometimes gets a bit too flowery.

 

Edited October 11, 2017 by Muloghonto

[rahulrulezz]

14 hours ago, Gollum said:

@Muloghonto @rahulrulezz Thought we could have a separate thread for the history discussions. Instead of spreading the knowledgeable posts across several different threads, why not put it all in one place for future reference ?

 

Let me start of with  a few questions to you guys:

 

1. How do you rate Tipu Sultan, tyrant or freedom fighter?  Or may be simply a shrewd ruler? Karnataka elections are due next year and this is becoming a hot topic, either you glorify him or cast him as the eternal villain. 

 

2. Rate the 5-6 (maybe more) greatest Ancient and Medieval rulers of India in terms of extent of empire, military, economy, administration and contribution to culture and arts.

 

3. is there a deliberate downplaying of the Imperial Cholas in our history books? We glorify the Mauryans, Guptas, Sultans, Mughals, Vijaynagar, Rajputs, Marathas etc but if you look at the extent of the Cholas during their prime and the cultural influence it is huge. South India, Lanka, Sumatra, Java, Bali, Malaya, Thailand, Cambodia all were under their sphere of influence. Even the North Indian kings (upto River Ganga) were soundly defeated by Rajendra Chola. We are talking about a great power that wielded tremendous power for close to 4 centuries and the Chola administration and land/water management is the stuff of legends. Even their ties with the Europeans, Chinese, Africans, Arabs was vast, they were very global in their outlook.

 

4. Were there any kind/just/tolerant non genocidal Muslim rulers in medieval India? Akbar was comparatively better I guess and I attribute his initial massacres of Hindus as politics/necessity rather than a compulsive desire to massacre non Muslims. Dara Shikoh could have been another one, but alas it never happened. 

 

Just a few questions from the top of my head, you can take your time in answering them . Let us keep all history discussions here for the benefit of all.

1) Tipu Sultan was probably the worst not in terms of brutualess but considering that he was so late in the Indian history and still prosecuted Hindus. Can't believe the fact that he had time to destroy Hindu temples even though Brits were on his ass

 

2) I agree with Muloghonto choices. Definitely put Ashoka on top

 

3) I agree. They were greatly superior and definitely deserve more credit in Indian history. However, one thing went against them was the fact that they were limited to south and didn't try to come up Delhi or Hindustani belt. And till you conquer Delhi or northern India, Indian history text books didn't glorify you. Regardless, I read about Chola empire in my history books in CBSE grade 9,10 books so ya, it wasn't as if Cholas were ignored. 

 

4) I am glad you mentioned Dara Sikhon. If he made it to the kingship, he would have been the best. Tbh I won't say Sher Shah was the best as mentioned by Muloghonto. He also started Jehad against Rajputs and his raid against Pooranmal , he declared it officially Jehad. Also the way he treated Jodhpurs Mladeo was another sign of Islamic superiority. Similar is war of Kalinjar. Regardless, he put Islam as his supreme power but didn't downgrade Hinduism completely. Plus his empire didn't last long after his accidental death because of a landline. But you have to give it to him that he was the only emperor to kick out Mughals out of India. something not even a single indian emperor could do.

Answering your question, Akbar, even though massacred thousand of Hindus and destroyed thousands of temples , Akbar was probably best of the lot considering he was raised by Hindus and most importantly, had the guts to start his religious sect which no Muslim emperor could even think of. That doesn't mean he was tolerant to Hindus. In order to get his Muslims mullahs and Muslim commander to fight for him, he had to do Jehad and destroy Hindu temples. In 2nd battle of Chittorgarh, one of the biggest Jauher was performed and almost 600,000 Hindus were massacred under Akbars directions. He was a very strange ruler. He had strong influence of Hindus around which is why he became calmer to Hindus later in his life. 

 

[Muloghonto]

25 minutes ago, rahulrulezz said:

 

4) I am glad you mentioned Dara Sikhon. If he made it to the kingship, he would have been the best. Tbh I won't say Sher Shah was the best as mentioned by Muloghonto. He also started Jehad against Rajputs and his raid against Pooranmal , he declared it officially Jehad. Also the way he treated Jodhpurs Mladeo was another sign of Islamic superiority. Similar is war of Kalinjar. Regardless, he put Islam as his supreme power but didn't downgrade Hinduism completely. Plus his empire didn't last long after his accidental death because of a landline. But you have to give it to him that he was the only emperor to kick out Mughals out of India. something not even a single indian emperor could do.

Answering your question, Akbar, even though massacred thousand of Hindus and destroyed thousands of temples , Akbar was probably best of the lot considering he was raised by Hindus and most importantly, had the guts to start his religious sect which no Muslim emperor could even think of. That doesn't mean he was tolerant to Hindus. In order to get his Muslims mullahs and Muslim commander to fight for him, he had to do Jehad and destroy Hindu temples. In 2nd battle of Chittorgarh, one of the biggest Jauher was performed and almost 600,000 Hindus were massacred under Akbars directions. He was a very strange ruler. He had strong influence of Hindus around which is why he became calmer to Hindus later in his life. 

 

Slight bit of nitpick here - Sher Shah didn't start a jihad to conquer Rajputs, he did a normal, standard military campaign and didn't engage in loot and pillage. Infact, Sher Shah is astonishing in how his troops did not loot and pillage almost everywhere he went.

 

The way he treated Maldeo, i believe anyone in his place would've done that. Sher Shah was put in an impossible situation - he gave his word of protection to Maldeo, but muslims in Malwa alleged that Maldeo raped muslim women and murdered their husbands. They went to the Ulema in Delhi and Sher Shah still didn't renege on his word. But when the Ulema issued a fatwa, stating that on judgement day, the victims will call out his name for protecting an unjust kaffir, denying him resurrection, did Sher Shah cave in and deal with Maldeo. 

 

As such, i find his position 'stuck between a rock and a hard place'  but the very fact that he stuck to his word of protection towards a hindu, despite allegations of rape and murder of muslims against him, shows, that man was so not a religious or a fundamentalist man.

 

[Muloghonto]

^^
Whoops, my bad. I mixed up Puran Mal with Maldeo. In Maldeo's case, Sher shah sowed misinformation, that Maldeo's commanders were about to betray him, so he went home and Sher shah won at Sammel. 

But from what we know, the disturbance in Malwa happened when Sher Shah went after Puran Mal. Puran Mal, instead of surrendering, he instructed his troops to follow him into standard Rajput suicide mission and all the women and children to do jauhar. 

 

[rahulrulezz]

4 hours ago, Muloghonto said:

1. Don't go into Aryan invasion theory. Because of two reasons : 

  a) It isn't conclusive either way, whether Aryans came to India or Aryans are from India. I've been there, talking endlessly of the possibilities, but at this point, thats all they are. 

  b) Aryans, whether they came to India or left India is ultimately irrelevant to us. Too much focus is given on this topic, due to religious & ethnic ideologies ( latter, from both side, former, from Hindu side) and leads to complete side-track and ignoring of our actual history. In my experience, every history thread that talks about Aryans, gets quagmired in the endless possibilities of Aryan theory and ignores all the rest of history. The Pallavas, Cholas, Cheras,Senas, Gujjars, Solankis- ALL of them and many many more- are far more relevant to our history than whether the Aryans came or went. I personally lean towards 'Aryans are either from India or middle east' option but as i said, its a lean, its not a hardline position.

 

2. Notice the pattern of invasions ? Except for Hepthalite (Abdal/Huns) invasion, EVERY SINGLE INVASION comes against a broken Northern India, lacking an empire or an empire already falling. Achaemenids, Greeks, Parthians, Sassanids, Kushans, Ghaznavi, Bin Qasim, Ghori, Babur, Timur - all of them succeeded against small kingdoms, not against an empire. Hepthalites are the only ones who invaded and won against an empire (Gupta) spanning the North. 

The reason is simple : India sucks for horses and from ancient times, we've been importing horses from Bactria (Balkh). Our literature calls the people living around Bactria-Badakhshan as 'Kamboja' and further mentions their clans : Ashvaka and Ashvakayana ( Ashvaka is the genesis of the name Afghan btw). 
So how did we compensate for lacking horses ? Elephants. Unfortunately, elephants cost cr@p ton of money. This is why, when we see major empires around - like Pal, Magadh dynasties, Shungas etc. had 5,000-15,000 war elephants, but tiny kingdoms like Porus, Hindu Shahis, etc. had 100-200 elephants. Sometime before 500s AD, humanity invented stirrups and stirrups changed warfare. This is because now, with stirrups, you can 'lock your foot in' and weight transfer, thus making lancers a viable option. Prior to that, you couldn't barge into something full speed on a horse, because without stirrups, you'd fly off your saddle. Notice all the frescoes and coins of ancient rulers, nobody is resting his foot on a stirrup in all the horse imagery, till this timeframe. IIRC, its a Kushan seal that shows the first stirrup. 

So without stirrups, horses could not be used to counter elephants- because you cannot 'sword fight' with someone sitting on top of an elephant while you are on a horse- there is like 3 feet height disadvantage for the horseman. But after stirrups, you could atleast hope to put blinkers on your horse, run it full speed and barge into an elephant formation, poking them with 20 foot pointy sticks (lances). 

So this makes elephants an 'unsurmountable battle problem' for our enemies, when we could field them by the thousands.

This is why Alexander turned around and left. The popular story is his soldiers rebelled. Not WHY they rebelled. The myth is, all of a sudden, war-vets got tired of war and wanted to go home. But Greek sources themselves state, that when Alexander heard of 'the kings of Praesii & Gangaridai'( Greek transformation of the term Kashi and Ganga-hridaya- referring to either Magadh or Bengal) was marching with over 200,000 troops that included 5,000 war elephants, he promptly crapped his briefs and left. 

 

3. Not all invaders were bad or even harmful for us. Take for example the Kushans. They were Indo-European by stock, came in and conquered whole of north India. At one point, Kushan Empire was the 'central empire' of the world, because its boundaries touched the Chinese empire (in Tarim Basin) and almost touched the Roman Empire (Rome's eastern-most outpost was around the black sea coast, Kushan's western-most reach was the Aral Sea). They made India insanely rich and we have Roman writers like Pliny lamenting how much Roman silver is flowing into India because Roman nobility was addicted to cotton & spices. (Fun fact : All the togas you see in hollywood for Roman senators - they were the dress of the upper class. And all togas were made from cotton - imported from the only place in the world that grew cotton in those times : India). Furthermore, they wholesale adopted Indian religions & culture. Early Kushans, like Kajala Kadaphises, were sun-worshippers ( same as the Magi tradition of the Iranians) but from then on, they adopted either Buddhism or Hinduism. Kanishka was a Buddhist and the last 'great Kushan' was named 'Bazdeo' in his seals - which is Kushan corruption of the word 'Vasudeva'....and he was a devotee of...Vasudeva Krishna. 
I have no problem calling these people Indians, as they effectively became Indians in every sense of the word. 

 

 

4. The muslims kicked over a dying and decaying Indian civilization, committing countless atrocities. But the start of the insane murder, genocide and destruction was done right when Gupta Empire fell - at the hands of the Hepthalites. Hepthalites are noted in Iranic sources as staunchly sun-worshippers and categoric haters of Buddhism. Mihirkula is also demonized in Indian literature (in the Kashmiri written Rajatarangini) as an insane butcher of the Buddhists. They are also the reason why Pataliputra was abandoned, because Mihirkula or his father, Toramanna, razed Pataliputra to the ground. A 100 years before Mihirkula, I-Tsing came though India and though he didnt talk specifically about Indian cities by name, he exalted the 'mighty capital of the emperors, historic capital of India' (which can only be Pataliputra). Yet, 100 years after Hepthalites, when Xuanzong visited Harsha, he noted how Pataliputra, the ancient capital, was in 'ruins'. 

Its also the Hepthalites, that utterly annihilated Gandhara and the Takshashila tradition of learning. Currently, the mounds of Taxila, Sirkap, Sagala all show evidence of tremendous damage around 500 AD and the Hepthalites are known to've broken through the Gupta defences sometime after 470 AD but evicted from India, by Malwa king Yashodharman and Gupta emperor Baladitya, sometime before 525 AD. But people don't know how much of a centre of learning and culture Takshashila was.

 

We have several Chinese pilgrims, wonder-struck by the famous 'Kanishka Stupa' and the 'library of enlightenment' that greeted the the moment they crossed the Khyber into India. We currently have the base remains of Kanishka's stupa and it'd have been the second largest stupa standing today, after Jetavanaramaya stupa in Sri Lanka. But whats more wonder-some, is beside it, stood a wooden built library tower (similar to the Chinese tower pagodas - here's an interesting side-note : Chinese Pagoda style architecture is actually Himalayan  style architecture, adopted by the Chinese around 200 AD, with transmission of Buddhism into China). The height noted varies, but all of them mention it being atleast 200 feet tall (that would make it a 20 storey building) and being repeatedly hit by lightning (also makes sense for a one-of-a-kind tower being a lightning rod). This was ancient Takshashila. by 500 AD, nothing remained, except the foundation stones of the city of Takshashila. 

 

 

Kudos for this post. Learnt so much from it. 

Also, a great original post by @Gollum  and Gollums theory on Aryan. You guys rock!!

 

Btw such a great introspective on stirrups!! Wow just wow!

 

btw @Muloghonto, are you a history prof or got some double degree in Indian history. How in the world you have so much knowledge!! I personally spend lots of time on ready books and articles on Indian medieval rulers however I do admit that my knowledge is limited to only last 700 years of Indian history. Plus my awareness is mostly limited to North/Rajputana belt considering I am a Northie myself. 

[rahulrulezz]

1 hour ago, Muloghonto said:

Slight bit of nitpick here - Sher Shah didn't start a jihad to conquer Rajputs, he did a normal, standard military campaign and didn't engage in loot and pillage. Infact, Sher Shah is astonishing in how his troops did not loot and pillage almost everywhere he went.

 

The way he treated Maldeo, i believe anyone in his place would've done that. Sher Shah was put in an impossible situation - he gave his word of protection to Maldeo, but muslims in Malwa alleged that Maldeo raped muslim women and murdered their husbands. They went to the Ulema in Delhi and Sher Shah still didn't renege on his word. But when the Ulema issued a fatwa, stating that on judgement day, the victims will call out his name for protecting an unjust kaffir, denying him resurrection, did Sher Shah cave in and deal with Maldeo. 

 

As such, i find his position 'stuck between a rock and a hard place'  but the very fact that he stuck to his word of protection towards a hindu, despite allegations of rape and murder of muslims against him, shows, that man was so not a religious or a fundamentalist man.

 

You actually think Puranmal and his kingdom raped Muslim women. Come on bro, you think Rajput Purammal would do that. it was a fabricated story used by Sher Shah to motivate soldiers and conquer infidel land (not the first Muslim emperor to implant fake stories Against a Hindu king raping Muslim women) 

 

he wanted the support of his Muslim commanders to fight against Rajputs and it was not a easy mission 

Regarddless, even going by your logic that he was just being fair to Muslims in other kingdoms, he eventually played by the religion aka Muslim card. 

As I said, I don't expect you to agree to my views and neither do I. So I guess we can respectfully agree to disagree on Sher Shah

[Muloghonto]

8 minutes ago, rahulrulezz said:

You actually think Puranmal and his kingdom raped Muslim women. Come on bro, you think Rajput Purammal would do that. it was a fabricated story used by Sher Shah to motivate soldiers and conquer infidel land (not the first Muslim emperor to implant fake stories Against a Hindu king raping Muslim women) 

I have no idea, to be honest. Its not like there are 0 rapists and Chors amongst Rajputs either, so could be. Either way, rightly or wrongly accused, it became a hindu king vs muslim people issue and the Ulema acted. It kind of puts Sher Shah in a 'no choice unless you want a lot of strife from muslims at you' position. 

 

8 minutes ago, rahulrulezz said:

he wanted the support of his Muslim commanders to fight against Rajputs and it was not a easy mission 

Regarddless, even going by your logic that he was just being fair to Muslims in other kingdoms, he eventually played by the religion aka Muslim card. 

As I said, I don't expect you to agree to my views and neither do I. So I guess we can respectfully agree to disagree on Sher Shah

I don't think Sher Shah was being fair or unfair, i simply think that he was put in an impossible situation: remember, he does not have a huge dynasty behind him, he is the start- and i highly doubt he could've survived the optics of 'muslim who lets hindu raja rape muslims' stigma, whether right or wrong. These kind of situations make it rife for someone close to him- maybe one of his sons- to murder him. As it is, Suri dynasty fell apart pretty much immediately after him, precisely because they chose to kill each other over who gets to be king. 

 

I see where you are coming from, but i think its telling that Sher Shah at first, still chose to side with Puran Mal, despite the complaints of the muslim civilians. 

 

Also, it just doesn't fit in Sher Shah's MO. He was an extremely unique 'subcontinental muslim ruler', in the sense that he was one of the very few (i think there was a Nizam, forget who), who was the complete package. Brilliant at war, pretty even-keeled in conquest brilliant in strategy : his fort at Rohtas was an example of Sher Khan understanding the overall geo-strategy of his situation. He also seemed to be quite brilliant in governance- not only investing heavily in the grand trunk road (ancient Uttarpath), he also standardized coinage and came up with a much more advanced and even taxation system. 

Infact, Mughal success owes its big part to them not tampering too much with the taxation system that Akbar put in place, straight-lifting some of Sher Shah's policies and such.

 

[Muloghonto]

59 minutes ago, rahulrulezz said:

Kudos for this post. Learnt so much from it. 

Also, a great original post by @Gollum  and Gollums theory on Aryan. You guys rock!!

 

Btw such a great introspective on stirrups!! Wow just wow!

 

btw @Muloghonto, are you a history prof or got some double degree in Indian history. How in the world you have so much knowledge!! I personally spend lots of time on ready books and articles on Indian medieval rulers however I do admit that my knowledge is limited to only last 700 years of Indian history. Plus my awareness is mostly limited to North/Rajputana belt considering I am a Northie myself. 

 

I wish i was a professor- too bad, it means either making $0 as a job or be 100% dedicated to teaching or arguing petty $hit with other history professors, almost all who lack a fundamental understanding of science and technology and don't understand over-arching, big picture of it anyways. (I don't claim to either, btw).

As the brilliant line from Shawshank Redemption says : "Thats all it takes really. Pressure and time. Pressure. And time". I've been reading history in my spare time for close to 20 years now. Did a few courses on it, happened to get a minor in it. Its easy, in the west , to turn pursue a life-long passion/hobby into something of that nature. So i'd say, i am much the same as you. But i don't restrict myself to any history. 

 

The only thing i can say, both from studying history in university setting as well as reading on my own, 99% of people-even history professors- tend to see history through tunnel vision. Its natural, because kinship interests people in history most of the time and most people read about their kin's history (thats also how you get a lot of crazy conspiracy theorists/superiorists/nutbags in history. People who read too much about 'their own' and practically nothing about everyone else). But reality is, all history is more or less connected. Sure its ok to have focuses/be more interested in one region than others, but don't ignore other regions totally. I will make no qualms saying my big 'hole' in history, is native american history & sub saharan African history, except Mali.

Especially, in good ol Eurasia. What happened in China at 250 BC, ultimately affected India in 100 BC. What happened in Arabia in 500AD, affected, in very short time, people thousands of miles away in Kabul. Whatever migrations happened, there are knock on effects. 

 

So don't restrict yourself to 'our history/this history/that history'. History is history. Ofcourse its natural to have interests and focuses, but one should try to see things in terms of 'this very interesting thing happened in this part of the world at X date. I wonder, what was going on in another part of the world, far away but linked, because of trade routes and travel, around the same time?'. 
If you realize, that the entire old world is basically linked together by people (Africa-Eurasia), with only two major bottlenecks of isolation : the Siberian north & east, beyond the lakes Baykal, the polar regions and sub-saharan Eastern, Central Africa and beyond, where the choke point was the Sahara and the nile river the only connection. All the way back to probably 8,000-6,000 years ago. 

People may not have known of China in Egypt or England in India, but information trickled down, technologies travelled and incidents of huge consequence at one end of this landmass, often ended up affecting things at the other end. 

 

Lastly, for the saddle and stirrup bit - i am an engineer originally, so my interest in history has always been primarily materials history. I got into history by my fascination of 'how did they build XYZ' and as an adult, that has long since moved on from just architecture, to history of metallurgy, pottery, etc. Admittedly, i am much more familiar about metallurgic history than pottery ( easier for my chemistry background to grasp metallurgy i suppose). In order to know how technology shaped mankind, one has to also look into technological history of mankind, in the true sense of the word.

 

Political history is something i truly got into around 10 years ago, because with less alone time, its an easier topic to follow and enjoy.

 

 

Edited October 12, 2017 by Muloghonto